Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 14, 1995 TAG: 9503140089
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Kuebler, who succeeds Ruth Appelhof as the museum's executive director, arrived in Roanoke two weeks ago. She formally met the local art world at a reception last Thursday night.
She was winning praise before that for her soft-spoken manner, her quest to get to know everyone on the museum staff - and her big ideas.
"She's hit the ground running," said Museum Board President Joseph Wright.
"I'm very favorably impressed with her," said Walter Dixon, a past board president who met Kuebler during the interview process and talked to her again last week. "I think she's got a lot of good ideas."
Kuebler, formerly director of academic programs at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, was chosen from a field of more than 50 candidates to run the Roanoke museum, which has an annual budget of $500,000 and focuses on Southern and Appalachian art.
Despite a hectic first few days, in which she struggled with both her initial ignorance and the flu - Kuebler still is working to familiarize herself with the museum's 1,500 piece collection, and admitted with a grin a week after her arrival she wasn't certain when the art museum was closed (every Monday) - Kuebler has plans that could change the look and even the sound of the museum.
She spoke of bringing chamber music into the exhibition halls, of adding three small galleries with a special focus on art education, of planning exhibits in tandem with other occupants of Center in the Square, such as Mill Mountain Theatre or the Science Museum.
"I absolutely believe in the power of collaborative programming," Kuebler said. "I would would have to meet the other directors and see what they felt about it. But I'm very open to it."
At the Indianapolis museum - which has roughly 20 times the budget of Roanoke's - Kuebler commissioned a symphony to coincide with an exhibit featuring the work of the abstract expressionist painter Richard Pousette-Dart. They also planned some exhibits to complement performances at the Indianapolis Repertory Theater - for example, bringing in works by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch to coincide with a play by Henrik Ibsen, who also was from Norway.
Other items on Kuebler's wish list:
A gallery of Tiffany glass, using the museum's own collection as a foundation.
A noontime lecture series. "We just have this wonderful location in the heart of the business district, we have to take advantage of it," Kuebler said. She envisions people bringing brown bag lunches, and the museum serving coffee and soft drinks.
An exhibit of glass sculptures by Seattle artist Dale Chihuly.
Kuebler stressed that most of her ideas are little more than pie-in-the-sky at present. "You have to understand that I'm really feeling my way," she said.
In recent interviews she was slightly guarded but un-combative, inquisitive, sometimes eager to deflect attention from herself. She asked almost as many questions of a reporter as he did of her.
In her spare time she likes to read biographies - and enjoys the fiction of Henry James, Edith Wharton and Isabel Allende. Good fiction is like painting, Kuebler said - it distills life.
The new museum director has a 19-year-old daughter, Caroline, who is a freshman at Washington University in St. Louis.
Kuebler herself graduated from Maryville College in St. Louis in the late 1960s. She has a master's degree in art history from Hunter College, the City University of New York, and received a Ph.D. in 20th-century art history from Indiana University last year. She was awarded a Fulbright grant to study Egyptian art in 1977.
She left her job at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 1993 to finish her Ph.D. Bret Waller, director of the Indianapolis museum, said her tenure there was a success, and noted the Pousette-Dart exhibit she organized opened a new wing of the museum. He called the exhibit her "crowning achievement" there.
To some, Kuebler's lack of sharp edges may come as a relief.
Appelhof, by most accounts highly knowledgeable about art, was sometimes criticized for a lack of administrative skills - while some ex-museum employees have said she could be hard to work with. Appelhof left of her own volition to become executive director of the Minnesota Museum of American Art.
"She [Kuebler] is not the kind of aggressive, flamboyant person Ruth was," said Mark Scala, the art museum's chief curator. "She's working hard to get to know people. ... Somebody said the other day they were surprised at how polite she was. It would be a mistake to think that represented someone who was not ambitious."
Instead, Scala described Kuebler as a "consensus-builder," in a way that may not have come naturally to Appelhof.
"I think she [Appelhof] came to see the value of that. I don't know that she had that as part of her her modus operandi at the beginning," Scala said. "And I think Joanne does."
Scala said that Kuebler asked him once if her ambitions for the museum were too large.
He told her, "No."
"A new person on board should dream big," he said. "This is really a time when we ought to be broadening our horizons."
Of course, there's always money.
Although museum officials say their financial base is currently fairly healthy, the lack of a director since May has hurt private donations, said Wright, the board president. "I would say they're down from where we want them to be," Wright said. "That's an area she'll be working on heavily for the next few months."
Kuebler, meanwhile, understands that most of the things she wants for the museum aren't free.
"It's going to be my responsibility to find funding," she said. "I think it's my job to get people interested enough that they want to participate. I really sense the community support for this museum."
Maybe that's why Kuebler stresses that whatever else she does, she will strive to please.
"We have to be able to make connection in the community," the new director said. "That has to be the overarching principle."
by CNB